


Scarlet

by RaisingCaiin



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Courting Rituals, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Vampire Turning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:17:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: She had just been ordered to save the princess's life, by whatever means necessary.There shouldn't have been anything more to it than that.





	Scarlet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thulimo](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=thulimo).



> for one of my favorite people <3

“You’re certain?”

He can probably tell too much from the glee in her voice, but right now Thu’rin’gwethil can’t really bring herself to care. From Gorthaur, this is a significant peace offering – this is him promising that although he doesn’t like her choice, he also won’t stand in her way.

Good. As much fun as it is, even she gets tired of threatening him, every once in a while.

“Would I have offered if I wasn’t?” Gorthaur asks, bored. “If you don’t want it-“

“Oh no – I want it, I want it.” Thu’rin’gwethil regards the struggling creature that Gorthaur has just dropped at her feet with growing excitement. It’s one of the survivors from that recent failure of a coup, she thinks – Elda, not that she cares that much about the differences between the incarnate kindreds one way or the other, or that Gorthaur has left enough of this one’s ears to tell. “Anything I should know before taking it up to her?”

Curse his knowing smirk – of course it will be for the princess, what else did he think Thu’rin’gwethil would be doing with it?

“It’s not your little one’s would-be lover, if that’s what you’re asking,” Gorthaur says disinterestedly. “Too large a first step, I think, though if you like I can save that one for you as well.”

“ _Void_ yes.” Even if the princess doesn’t want him anymore, Thu’rin’gwethil would jump at the chance to dispose of the presumptive dog herself – to look him in the eye as she drains his life and let him see who has bested him. “Anything else?”

“Would she have known it, you mean.” Having made his grand gesture, Gorthaur is already turning away. “How should I know? I think it’s mine’s lover, but it’s complicating things and I don’t need it anymore.”

Huh. He might be playing it dumb for her, but if that’s true then Gorthaur is sacrificing one – or two, if he spares the other for her as well – major assets that he could be using as leverage in his own plans to turn the golden prince. 

He’s a prick and a pain, Gorthaur, but when push comes to shove, a good friend too. 

“Gorthaur.”

“What.”

“Thanks.” 

He waves her off, the bastard, even as he sweeps away. “I’ve dealt with worse. Go, feed your little one.”

And then he is gone, and Thu’rin’gwethil is left to hoist her second courting gift bodily off the floor, grinning.

~ ~ ~

No one had expected the princess to live after her double folly of first, challenging Gorthaur, and second, _actually winning_. 

Ohhhhh, but Thu’rin’gwethil would have given an arm and a wing to have been there to see it – Gorthaur brought low by an itty-bitty dog bite and a teeny-tiny _soooooong_. . .   

What? He’s a friend, but he’s also a prick. He can be both! He needs a firm hand, that one – probably why he goes chasing after the Dark One then, eh?

But alas, Thu’rin’gwethil had returned from a routine patrol to find the excitement already over, Tol-in-Gaurhoth bustling like an anthill knocked over and Gorthaur bleeding profusely from the neck as he tried to reinstate order.

Spitting blood and curses, he’d told her that she was in charge of the princess.

“The who what now?”

“She could be valuable. Evidence. Leverage.” Gorthaur’s voice had been little more than a hiss and a bubble. “I want her on my side. Do whatever you must.”

Thu’rin’gwethil had protested, of course. Of the two of them, wasn’t he the one who flaunted his whole ‘master of seduction’ thing like he couldn’t get laid without it?

But as much as she likes to bait him, Gorthaur really is not to be trifled with when he is in a mood (often), thirsty (even more often), or in pain (rare, but even worse than the other two combined).

And so Thu’rin’gwethil had accepted her new charge, though with little grace.

Looking back, maybe she should have fought the assignment a little harder. Because the princess certainly was still dangerous, even if not in the ways that either Gorthaur or Thu’rin’gwethil had originally thought.

~ ~ ~

Because she was _lovely_.

But not just that – she was also smarter than a whip, and so fucking strong-willed that it made Thu’rin’gwethil’s heart pound just to listen to her cursing them all in her whispering tongue every time she fought her way back from the depths of unconsciousness.

So really, looking back. . . Actually, no, Thu’rin’gwethil thinks, she would have accepted the assignment from Gorthaur all the same even if she’d known then what she does now.

~ ~ ~

The princess is already awake, already watching, when Thu’rin’gwethil staggers in, dumping her gift at the foot of the bed.

Void but she’s beautiful, even with her dark fey hair shorn and her entire form swaddled to keep off the chill.

“Feeling any better today?”

“A little.” Even healing, the princess’s voice is rough and low. It burns like sunlight and rasps like running water – Thu’rin’gwethil has never heard anything like it. 

“Good.” Thu’rin’gwethil has never counted herself any master of words, but she rarely gets stuck on inanities like this either. But those eyes, those luminous eyes. . .

Then the princess blinks. “You said I could eat, today.”

Thu’rin’gwethil shakes herself from her stupor. “Ah. Yes. Mmmm. Definitely. A good point, very valid, I did say that – oh look, I brought you something.”

Gorthaur has said that the princess is only half Maia (probably the only reason why he isn’t lying dead in a ditch somewhere too, isn’t it – _hah_ ), so she probably won’t know the significance of this gift – probably won’t understand the full meaning behind the dripping Elda that Thu’rin’gwethil now hefts off the floor and dumps across her lap with, ah, a regrettable lack of grace or foresight, oops.

But it is an enemy, its blood offered for her to decide its fate – mercy or consumption. It is a courting gift, the second of three: by the traditions of the North (themselves corrupted from the traditions of the West), the princess is to be offered blood three times, and after Thu’rin’gwethil had slit a vein and poured out some of her own to try and save her. . .

Ohhhhh but Gorthaur, the bastard, had gone so far as to laugh at Thu’rin’gwethil’s face when she’d first realized what it was she’d done. Not that she would take it back, of course, but – surprising. Her instincts had known what she wanted before her mind had, and that’s not something that Thu’rin’gwethil can say of herself very often anymore.  

But now the princess is blinking, looking first at the bleeding lump spread across her lap and then at Thu’rin’gwethil. If she is startled, though, or else thinks the treatment barbaric, then she does not say.

Instead, an arched brow rises. Thu’rin’gwethil nearly trips over herself to explain what she can.

“You were pretty far gone, I didn’t know what else I could do, so I, erm, kind of – tried to make you like me? Maiar blood, it’s good for a lot of things, I thought if you took some of mine you might make a better recovery, and I-“

The other brow rises. Thu’rin’gwethil falls silent, and for probably the hundredth time she marvels at the princess’s uncanny ability to communicate her will so easily, even as she also fumes beneath it.

Definitely part Maia. Thank goodness this one got no further north than Tol-in-Gaurhoth, for the Dark One _does_ like a challenge – again, look at stupid Gorthaur.

“You saved my life?” the princess asks.

“We did our best,” Thu’rin’gwethil starts, but the princess raises an imperious hand, cutting her off.

“No, I mean you, and only you. I remember, or at least parts of it – you were the one who saved me, weren’t you.”

Thu’rin’gwethil should probably tell her about Gorthaur and Gorthaur’s mercy, yadda yadda, but no, actually, it’s true – it _was_ Thu’rin’gwethil who had countered Gorthaur’s magicks in the princess’s veins by giving her to drink of her own. “Erm, yes. Yes, it was me.”

The princess nods. “I thought I recognized you.” She beckons Thu’rin’gwethil forward. 

Well, Thu’rin’gwethil reasons, it can’t hurt, can it? She’s still healing, the little half-Maia, what could she possibly do that would –

Then the princess leans forward and presses a chaste kiss to her brow. Her lips burn like sunlight; her skin still smells of blood, her own and Thu’rin’gwethil’s both.

Oh. Oh, _Void_.

But well before Thu’rin’gwethil has even the _slightest_ hope of processing this, the princess leans back and gestures to Thu’rin’gwethil’s second courting gift. “Tell me what this is.”

She gives no sign of recognizing the dark-haired Elda spread bleeding across her lap, shows no hint of revulsion at the implications of its presence when Thu’rin’gwethil has already promised her that today she will be well enough to eat. Instead she simply waits, calm and collected, and what probably could have been written off as infatuation – even after that kiss, good Void and good _night_ – digs its sharp little claws deeper into Thu’rin’gwethil with every surprising new revelation.

Ohhhhhh, she is an absolute fool, and she can’t even blame it on being stuck around Gorthaur and those terrible hulking Valaraukar for so long that she’d chase any pretty face she saw. No, there’s something different about this one, and it doesn’t matter what Gorthaur might say later on – Thu’rin’gwethil wants to court the princess, properly.

But for now, it’s more important to make sure that she lives, and heals, and regains that remarkable former strength that nearly threw down Tol-in-Gorhauth – that would have been wasted on a _Man_ , of all things.

It won’t be wasted on Thu’rin’gwethil, if the princess will have her.

She smiles at the thought, and the princess only tilts her head, considering her sharp white fangs with curiosity.

“Bit of a taste for you,” Thu’rin’gwethil tells her. Void, she is perfect. “Just to whet your appetite. I’ll lift it for you – there you go – grab its hair, pull it back – good, there you are – _bite_.”

And really, if anything, the princess is only more beautiful like this, the blood of Thu’rin’gwethil’s second courting gift painting her lips scarlet, wet and bright.   


End file.
